Michael Jonas

About Michael Jonas

Michael Jonas has worked in journalism in Massachusetts since the early 1980s. Before joining the CommonWealth staff in early 2001, he was a contributing writer for the magazine for two years. His cover story in CommonWealth's Fall 1999 issue on Boston youth outreach workers was selected for a PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

Michael got his start in journalism at the Dorchester Community News, a community newspaper serving Boston's largest neighborhood, where he covered a range of urban issues. Since the late 1980s, he has been a regular contributor to the Boston Globe. For 15 years he wrote a weekly column on local politics for the Boston Sunday Globe's City Weekly section.

Michael has also worked in broadcast journalism. In 1989, he was a co-producer for "The AIDS Quarterly," a national PBS series produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, and in the early 1990s, he worked as a producer for "Our Times," a weekly magazine program on WHDH-TV (Ch. 7) in Boston.

Michael lives in Dorchester with his wife and their two daughters.

About Michael Jonas

Michael Jonas has worked in journalism in Massachusetts since the early 1980s. Before joining the CommonWealth staff in early 2001, he was a contributing writer for the magazine for two years. His cover story in CommonWealth's Fall 1999 issue on Boston youth outreach workers was selected for a PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

Michael got his start in journalism at the Dorchester Community News, a community newspaper serving Boston's largest neighborhood, where he covered a range of urban issues. Since the late 1980s, he has been a regular contributor to the Boston Globe. For 15 years he wrote a weekly column on local politics for the Boston Sunday Globe's City Weekly section.

Michael has also worked in broadcast journalism. In 1989, he was a co-producer for "The AIDS Quarterly," a national PBS series produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, and in the early 1990s, he worked as a producer for "Our Times," a weekly magazine program on WHDH-TV (Ch. 7) in Boston.

Michael lives in Dorchester with his wife and their two daughters.

Stories by Michael Jonas

Boston superintendent finalist led school now in receivership

THE GOOD NEWS for Guadalupe Guerrero, one of four finalists for the Boston school superintendent post, is that, as the only candidate with prior experience in the district, he is well-known to many in the system and can speak with some familiarity about the city and its schools. The bad news is that his prior(...)

There has been all sorts of talk about the costs of a Boston Olympics, with elected officials left and right stamping their feet, drawing lines in the sand, and otherwise declaring with the utmost gravity and certainty that they will not allow the commitment of any public funds (other than those already planned for infrastructure(...)

There has always been a Through the Looking Glass unreality to how things work (or don’t) on the MBTA. So think of oversight of the moribund transit agency as something akin to the Pottery Barn rule — stretched out strangely by a funhouse mirror into a slow-motion spectacle playing out over decades. The rule, which(...)

Community concerned; mayor takes nuanced stand

IN 2012, THE chronically low-performing Lawrence school system became the first district put into state receivership under a 2010 education law that gives the state sweeping new powers over struggling schools. Will Holyoke be next? That question now looms over the Western Massachusetts district of 5,500 students, where achievement has long been low and dropout(...)

Chamber’s Guzzi says infrastructure money needed

THE BEST LINE of the morning at Gov. Charlie Baker’s breakfast speech on Thursday to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce didn’t come from the governor, but from Paul Guzzi, the well-respected head of the business organization who is retiring later this year. When a question came, following Baker’s remarks, about the state of the(...)

Vows regular sit-downs with reporters

THE PALATIAL OFFICE of the Senate president is big enough for the entire Democratic caucus of more than 30 lawmakers to occasionally gather for private sessions amidst its ornate wood molding and picture gallery. And if its walls could talk, they would have plenty to tell about secret strategy sessions where details of bills were(...)

It turns out the third time isn’t charm after all. Or, if it is, we’ll never know. After flirting for a couple of weeks with another run for president, our erstwhile governor, one-time Belmont resident, and owner of mega-manses in many states said on Friday that he won’t enter the 2016 Republican contest. The idea(...)

Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story. That seems to the operative approach to the fact that Boston resident John Kerry got a $50 ticket for an unshoveled sidewalk alongside his Beacon Hill townhouse. To say the story was irresistible catnip to the crew at the Boston Herald would not(...)

House jettisons term limits DeLeo once embraced

IN NATURE, EVOLUTION occurs over millions of years. In politics, it is often on a much faster timeline. In the Massachusetts House of Representatives, about six years seems to be how long it takes for something to evolve so completely that it becomes the mirror opposite of its former self. So it was that House(...)

If there is one man who is happy about the blizzard that will white-out coverage of almost any other news for the next few days it may be Bob DeLeo. It’s not that the unassuming House speaker actually pines for the massive storm, which could hit his coastal hometown of Winthrop particularly hard. It’s that(...)